Me, Myself & Social Media: Some Reflections

In 2012 I was finally persuaded – by myself rather than anyone else – to join the world of social media beyond Facebook in the form of tweeting and blogging, mainly to explore its uses for academics, in particular postgraduate students (see @Nadine_Muller and The New Academic). It seems appropriate, therefore, to spend a few lines reflecting on where my social media journey has taken me and, more importantly, how I feel about it. Though I use Twitter and my blog for what can perhaps be considered “professional” purposes, I’m not going to adopt the artificial distinction between the personal and the professional here, since my blog and the conversations I have on Twitter are about postgraduate support, a realm in which professional networks among peers are so often also personal ones, be they online or offline communities. Besides, as with everyone else, the person I am “privately” very much determines the professional I am, and it is in part some of my personal issues and anxieties – two of which I’ve already briefly discussed previously (in An Anxious Mind and Organising Academic Conferences) – that define, at least to a certain extent, my relationship with social media. Nevertheless, I shall split up my experiences and the impact that social media has had on me in the past year into a two categories (by now, some of you may have clocked onto the fact that I’m obsessed with structure – my brain works in lists, for better or worse). So here it goes.

SOCIAL MEDIAL FOR THE SOCIALLY AWKWARD

I certainly enjoy being on my own much more than being in company, particularly for long periods of time and when the company consists of more than one other person (though there are, of course, exceptions to this, albeit not many). Social media, within this context, provides the opportunity to communicate and “socialise” virtually without having to be in physical proximity to people, but it’s certainly no like-for-like replacement for networking in person (at conferences, etc.). Despite the seeming superficiality and brevity of the exchanges one has on Twitter, I do appreciate this kind of communication rather a lot, simply because it saves me the awkwardness and strain I feel when meeting new people face-to-face. As an introvert person, it costs me a lot of energy to be sociable for long periods of time, especially at conferences, and although I enjoy it once I’m in the flow, I pretty much collapse with exhaustion afterwards and need at least a day or two of as little verbal communication as possible (“How do you teach?!”, I hear you ask; well teaching is an entirely different story for me, thankfully). Social media allows me to avoid that strain as well as the awkwardness I often feel (though hopefully not express) when meeting new people, not least because I now often meet people online before meeting them offline at academic events, and this makes it much easier to introduce oneself and begin a conversation. Social media may have its downfalls, here, you may say, as people can hide behind the mask of “virtual reality” (a term which has by now of course been much debated; after all, what is “virtual reality” if not a part of and hence the equivalent to “reality”). But I must confess that, personally, I have made just as many bad judgments of people’s characters (reliability, enthusiasm, etc.) offline as online, so short of determining whether a person actually exists and whether they are who they claim to be, I fail to see any shortcomings in finding collaborators and like-minded academics via conferences or via social media, but clearly this very much depends on your personality type and your social preferences. Some of you will recognise what I’m writing here, while others may think I’m just a little bit odd, so we’ll swiftly move on to a different aspect of my experiences with social media.

THINKING, WRITING & SOCIAL MEDIA

As someone who finds it very difficult to tackle the blank page or screen and simply start writing (without making repetitive structural notes and lists beforehand), blogging has been a real revelation for me in some respects. At first it took a while to hit the “publish” button, but I now see my blog as a space which doesn’t need to be governed by unattainable notions of perfection. Rather, it’s somewhere I can think through things and reflect on them, and it’s perfectly ok for those reflections to be flawed or incomplete at times. It has also taught me to make good use of my rather short attention span and my extreme fits of motivation and energy. Before I started blogging, I never thought I would be able to write and publish my thoughts on a discussion as quickly as within two hours after a meeting (as was the case with E-Musings, for example), and it was extremely useful to me to get rid of at least a small proportion of the thoughts that run through my head at lightening speed after such discussions. They often resolve themselves by turning into bad moods and an overactive (yet unproductive) brain eventually, so putting the virtual pen to paper (or keyboard to screen) feels like a good alternative with a much better outcome. I haven’t yet started blogging about my research as such, though I can imagine – and know from others – that, here, too blogging can function as a good way of sketching out the beginnings of an idea or argument. Perhaps the most important thing that blogging has taught me is how quickly I can produce 1,000 words if I actually feel like I have something to say, and I do hope this will help with my various bits of other writing too, be it for lectures or for publications. Perhaps interestingly, I always thought blogging and tweeting rather peculiar, mostly because I couldn’t imagine that anyone would be interested in what I’d have to say, or that I’d have anything of interest to say at all. It’s because of this that my entry into social media has been motivated by the one topic on which I would like to be heard by those who choose to pay attention: postgraduate and early-career training and experiences. It’s the one topic where I feel that, perhaps, sharing my experiences might make a difference to others.

Twitter has similar if necessarily different functions to blogging when it comes to thinking and writing. It’s a great way of canvassing other people’s thoughts on a particular question or topic, though here – far more so than with blogging – I tend to avoid getting into the fine details, simply because I feel Twitter doesn’t lend itself to and isn’t designed for long, in-depth conversations, and I’m afraid I can’t see the point in people pushing an argument or conversation via an endless number of tweets. Twitter is a brilliant way of gaining an overview of various aspects of a debate, but, for me at least, it’s not where I get to the bottom of things, and neither is my blog.

Also, while I’ve mainly managed to keep my Twitter account busy (and sometimes your timelines, no doubt), regular blogging hasn’t quite worked out as well. As some of you may have noticed, the last two The New Academic posts (on Organising Academic Conferences and Academic Committees & Boards) went online quite a bit later than I had planned. Having said that, generally speaking I’m quite happy that apart from a couple of slips I stuck to the schedule and produced all the posts I had promised, which wasn’t always easy, considering I was teaching four days a week, and considering the rest of my task list.

Finally, then, the verdict on my experiences of social media are certainly very positive. I’ve reached and met people I would ordinarily never have had the opportunity (or courage) to speak to, and I can’t say I’ve found social media a problem when I had other things to do; rather, it can make for a productive break when you’re immersed in other projects.

So thank you, readers and tweeters, for making my first social media year so enjoyable and truly inspiring! Many of you have been very generous with your comments, here and on Twitter, and I’m not sure I always deserved them, but I’m certainly glad you found my ramblings of some use.

Nadine is Senior Lecturer in English Literature and Cultural History at Liverpool John Moores University. Her research covers the literary and cultural histories of women, gender, and feminism from the nineteenth century through to the present day. She is currently completing a monograph on the Victorian widow (Liverpool University Press, 2018), and is leading War Widows' Stories, a participatory research and oral history project on war widows in Britain.

9 Responses

On protecting your work – I was talking to Vanessa Heggie who now blogs on her research for the Guardian, and she was of the view that blogging about your research is as likely to protect your work as make it vulnerable to being ‘stolen’ – you’ve staked your territory very publically, and it may well put people off working on something similar! And your ideas can just as well be ‘stolen’ in a traditional conference as online.

The way I look at it, if my blogging is publishable as a journal article, and thus ‘stealable’, it’s probably not a very good blog post! And would be far better off in a journal. There’s so much useful and interesting things to blog about other than your research findings – not least the experience of being a researcher, which is precisely what Nadine’s blog does so well.

Nadine, as a phd student I find your blog really useful and approachable. I wonder if you have any thoughts on protecting your material? By which I mean, if you use a blog to discuss academic ideas and work do you worry that it may be copied? Or that it would detract from a publication? Are there institutional rules which prevent you from writing in social media on any of your academic work?

I have the same concerns, Juliette. My supervisor has said a few times about the need to protect my work from being copied. I don’t know how much this actually happens though. I’m interested in starting a blog series about some of the lives and works of the women writers I work on, as these aren’t available online or in English, but I’m very aware of these problems you mention of publication, copying, etc. I would like to think that, given technological advances and the boom of academic blogging and tweeting, this wouldn’t be a problem, but I do wonder about the reality. I would also like to think that having an active blog about aspects (not all) of your research demonstrates a certain engagement with research, impact, some level of publication, but again, I’m not sure that this is the reality yet. I’d love to know what conclusions you come to.
Holly (@hjpolyglot)

It is most interesting, and reassuring, to read this post which so accurately captures many of my own concerns about using social media. As someone who is very much in the early stages of developing their academic career, I have found Twitter an excellent tool for networking and for also gaining an insight into some of the broader debates and issues related to this profession. What I particularly like about social media, is the ability to discuss with those outside of my own academic discipline, whom I otherwise would probably not come into contact with through traditional academic forums. I have enjoyed reading your other blog posts and found them most useful.

Nadine, you have put into words exactly what has put me off social media in the past and also the advantages of getting involved. I also felt that no one would be interested in what I had to say and am quite introverted and enjoy my own company. Now I’m addicted to twitter (digiddicted?!) and have posted two pieces on my shiny new blog ‘workhouse tales’. As I’ve said before your posts are inspirational and really hit the spot!

I absolutely agree with you about Twitter providing a good overview as I also struggle with using it for long conversations and debates. Using social media has also proved invaluable to my work and my professional (and personal) life by enabling me to make connections with others and sharing and receiving information about my research area. I’ve also heard of so many CFPs and other professional opportunities that I simply would’t have found otherwise.

[…] Nadine Muller (Liverpool John Moores University) has posted some personal reflections on the use of social media in academia on her blog. She considers the uses of social media by the socially awkward, and suggests that […]

I’m Senior Lecturer in English Literature & Cultural History at Liverpool John Moores University and a BBC New Generation Thinker. I specialise in literary and cultural histories of women, gender, and feminism in Britain from the nineteenth century to the present day, women’s writing, and widowhood. I also provide support, training, and development for postgraduate and early-career researchers.

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